It's not a secret that the general population hangs on to no end of non-scientific beliefs despite contrary evidence; the Nobel Intent forums have been visited by proponents of homeopathy and intelligent design, to give just two examples.

I must say I'm more than miffed that that comment. Are you implying that people who believe in intelligent design do not believe in scientific beliefs backed by evidence? What evidence is there to discredit "intelligent design"? Do you even know what the concept of intelligent design entails? Or are you just mouthing off shit like this to be pretentious?

I am painfully well versed in ID as propounded by the leading figures of the movement, such as those at the Discovery Institute. I have read their materials extensively, watched videos of their talks, read much of the Dover transcripts and all of the decision, etc. My conclusion, which matches that of the judicial system and that of any scientific organization that has taken a position on the matter, is that ID is not scientific and offers no testable claims beyond negative arguments against evolution. It is little more than the personal opinion that biology looks designed and purposeful dressed up in scientific terms.

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It comes across to me as the author is saying, "people who believe in religion have the intelligence of a child."

If this is based on my statements regarding ID, it's worth pointing out that many religions, including Buddhism and most of the mainstream Christian churches, accept the scientific evidence for evolution.

If it's something beyond ID, which i have an extensive history of making arguments against, then you should note that i'm largely reporting the arguments of others made in the journal Science. Blame the AAAS.

unproven medical interventions; the mystical nature of out-of-body experiences; the existence of supernatural entities such as ghosts and fairies; and the legitimacy of astrology, ESP, and divination— all originate in childhood

Actually I don't think this statement is true, at least it isn't for me. I grew up with a very strong belief in science and I still find great value in scientific understandings of the world. In the last decade however I have come to an appreciation that science is just one way of understanding the world and it's reliance on certainty and the observer limits it's ability to explain everything.

Having experienced many supernatural events as an adult, including seeing ghosts, UFOs and the success of alternative medical therapies such as acupuncture there is much that science does not yet explain. The personal struggle is to decide whether science is wrong, your personal experiences are flawed or simply that science can't yet explain everything.

Just as ridiculous as the notion that a person should believe what the bible says without any personal experience of god, so to is the notion that science is an absolute truth and that this automatically disproves other forms of knowledge is nonsense. Science is just a consensus based on consistently demonstrated evidence, argued in the light of current scientific understandings.

And what evidence are we talking about here? Genetics? Big Bang Theory? Natural Selection? It might be of interest to some here that these were all causes championed by creationists. Gregor Mendel, Georges LeMaitre, and Edward Blyth. I don't see how creationism, ID, or the belief in the existence of a G-O-D means people aren't able to comprehend these sorts of things.

If anything, belief in ID has brought us all these conclusions that many people, atheists or otherwise, use to refute the existence of a godhead.

Originally posted by MaxJenius:What evidence is there to discredit "flying spaghetti monsterism"?

What evidence is there to support it?

Whether you want to call it God, FSM, Buddha, Gaia, or what have you, the fact that sentient life can exist in such a perfectly balanced eco-system makes one wonder. It's surely more mathematically possible that there was a creator than of random chance.

Are you implying that people who believe in intelligent design do not believe in scientific beliefs backed by evidence?

We are just saying that people who believe in intelligent design have no intelligent reason to do so. Much like you have no intelligent reason to believe that a person tree will grow out of the ground if you plant a baby in nutrient-rich soil.

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What evidence is there to discredit "intelligent design"?

So you believe everything that has no evidence against it? There's no evidence against invisible pink unicorns either. I suppose you believe in them as well. Perhaps you've never heard of Russel's Teapot.

" If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

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I don't see how creationism, ID, or the belief in the existence of a G-O-D means people aren't able to comprehend these sorts of things.

It just means that they also believe some very stupid things. If I believe that I have 10 fingers and I also believe that I don't exist, my first belief can be right according to the evidence at hand (haha) even though my second one is demonstrably stupid.

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What evidence is there to support it?

Whether you want to call it God, FSM, Buddha, Gaia, or what have you, the fact that sentient life can exist in such a perfectly balanced eco-system makes one wonder. It's surely more mathematically possible that there was a creator than of random chance.

This statement either tells of extreme ignorance of statistical probabilities and astronomy or extreme ego or extremely limited perspective. Very likely all three.

We are one planet orbiting one star out of billions and billions in the known universe with no way to tell what events have occurred in potential other universes or before what we consider to be the beginning of time. You only think that our existence necessitates divine intervention because you see it from a perspective of us being at the center of everything. We aren't even at the center of our galaxy. You are like an ant thinking that the world is created just for ants by the giant ant in the sky with no knowledge of the people living 100 feet away. As far as we can tell, the universe(s) is(are) infinite in scope. In such a system, everything must happen an infinite number of times eventually. And the observation of not only expansion but accelerated universal expansion seems to indicate that things are not quite as balanced as they could be. The point of science is that we don't know how we got here, so we come up with reasons that require only what we can observe and predict. Saying that "god did it" is such a warm and fuzzy answer isn't it? But it doesn't actually answer anything. It's not a rational belief, because it's not based on rational inference. It is a child's belief in something because his mommy and daddy say so and it's comforting to believe that mommy and daddy have all the answers.

It's also possible that you have little men inside your head that are invisible to any detection method we have currently. That's not a reason to believe in them. It's possible that there are villages of mer-people living under the sea and we just haven't found them yet. That's not a reason to believe in them. It's possible that the next time you jump you won't come back down. That's not a reason to believe that you won't. It's possible that Bill Clinton didn't actually diddle Monica Lewinsky in the oval office, and that the whole thing was just an elaborate scam and we just haven't discovered the truth yet. But that's no reason to believe it.

First of all the fact that science needs to correct our childhood intuitions and assumptions is neither surprising nor the serious difficulty with science education. After all the reason we have this scientific knowledge and the ancient Greeks did not is that it isn't obvious nor discoverable by pure thought. Before one sees the contradictory evidence a Descartian ghost in the machine pulling levers and a flat earth are probably better explanations than the scientific theory.

Moreover, those students who gain an interest in science and find it exciting or fun shed these beliefs in the appropriate fashion. The real problem is that science alienates and discourages many people who are then left to either accept the scientific claims on pure authority or hold fast to their prior beliefs. Unfortunately, our desire to teach people the scientific method often deters them from accepting statements on scientific authority even when necessary (global warming is too complex for the layman to analyze the evidence on their own).

Secondly dualism is hardly something science has disproved, only the more extreme forms, and some types of dualism (e.g. substance dualism) are very popular theories among many scientifically inclined philosophers. More or less these theories grant that experiential state is totally determined by brain state but nevertheless it is not IDENTICAL to brain state. This might seem a distinction with no different but if say happiness just *means* a certain configuration of neurons it is very difficult to see how we knew that we were happy before we knew about neurons. A more plausible theory in my view is that experiences and brain states are different sorts of things the same way mass and weight are different sorts of things but just like we empirically discovered that mass and weight go together so too have we discovered that brain state and experiential state go together.

I realize this isn't the notion that they are blaming kids for having in the article but perhaps this sort of ridiculous habit of sneering at anything that isn't properly anointed scientific materialism hurts the education effort. Given that I'm the sort of Dawkins/Harris style atheist who thinks that religious claims ought to be treated no more seriously than Bigfoot sightings when I think scientists are being overly dismissive and narrow minded that's saying something.

In particular science outreach needs to realize that we MUST ask the public to believe things on scientific authority from time to time. Thus the public needs confidence that when scientists dismiss something as superstitution they have the sort of complete compelling set of evidence that they do for global warming. If all you have is your vague belief that experiences couldn't be ontologically distinct entities (an empirically untestable proposition) then you should be using much more cautious language.

First of all even if you accept that it is more likely that there was a creator than not it doesn't get you very far. Generally people assume once that point is settled they are justified to go believe in their Christian god, all encompassing life force or whatever. However, saying there is SOME creator is a long way from specifying properties. Maybe it is some dude named bob who traveled back in time, maybe it is a wholly evil being, maybe it is a giant hippopotamus who shits universes.

Alright now why would one think that it was more probable that there was a creator for the universe than that there was not? Well the usual intuition is that it's really unlikely for something as complex as the universe to have just sprung into existence. However, pretty much by definition anything capable of intentionally conceiving of the universe and causing it to come into being is just as complex as the universe so it should be no more probable for the creator to come into existence than for the universe to do it on it's own. Of course you might play cames and talk about a god that necessarily exists or who is outside time but one can play exactly the same game with non-sentient/physical processes undermining any supposed advantage for the creator hypothesis.

The stupid thing is that the pro-science crowd ought to know better. They're acting very unscientifically.

It's human nature to categorize things into "us-vs-them" style conflicts. Science vs. belief. The stupid part is that the pro-science crowd shouldn't be believing in anything. The only thing that true science holds as a belief is that its methodology is sound for producing knowledge. No other precept in science is taken as fact (well, except for the general consistency of the universe and that the universe does obey knowable laws).

In any case, the pro-science crowd shouldn't be trying to win a war of belief. Absolute trust should not be placed in science, if for no other reason than that science is done by people. Trusting in science is no different from trusting in any other human-made system. It's run by people, and that is its greatest flaw.

The pro-religion crowd has always been willing to put faith in something; that's why they're pro-religion. The pro-science crowd should be wary of taking up that mantel; it strips away the one detail that could be used to place science on a pedestal above faith.

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the fact that sentient life can exist in such a perfectly balanced eco-system makes one wonder. It's surely more mathematically possible that there was a creator than of random chance.

Actually, it's not. And here's why.

You can, if you understood all the factors involved, mathematically calculate the odds of sentient life developing on its own in a particular region of space.

You can not calculate the odds of a supreme being controlling the universe. That's because the existence of said being is outside of our possible knowledge; it is either accepted that the being exists or rejected. You can suppose that the being exists, but there's no system for computing the probability of a creator's existence based on having a creation.

So it isn't mathematically more like of one vs. the other, because you can't mathematically compute one of the terms. Math fails.

This argument is one sided as hell. I've had to take science classes every year of schooling and I'm now in psychology and will probably be taking something else next semester next year as a general req for accounting in college.

No one is required to take a theology class. One of the most rewarding experiences I've had was helping my gf get her theology minor, I helped her study and write some papers. It gave me the chance to spend some time studying the books that explain the logic behind the faith.

The entire argument is for more science classes, the 2 or 3 a year through HS (math is science in HS, or do you think phsyics is a liberal arts core?) yet I haven't seen anyone say or even volunteer to take theology classes to learn about religion and it's mechanics and systems. Believe it or not, the Catholic Church and the protestant offshoots, aren't just people who came up with a good story, there is a lot of thought and reason behind the things they do.

Originally posted by sinai:And what evidence are we talking about here? Genetics? Big Bang Theory? Natural Selection? It might be of interest to some here that these were all causes championed by creationists. Gregor Mendel, Georges LeMaitre, and Edward Blyth. I don't see how creationism, ID, or the belief in the existence of a G-O-D means people aren't able to comprehend these sorts of things.

If anything, belief in ID has brought us all these conclusions that many people, atheists or otherwise, use to refute the existence of a godhead.

I can't actually tell what you're arguing here. Can people engage in scientific methodological naturalism while maintaining a diversity of theistic or atheistic beliefs? Absolutely; it's one of the strengths of modern science. In the past, the methodological naturalism was not always considered essential (and wasn't practiced by everyone you note), but that wound up being unsatisfactory both scientifically and theologically.

But the current creationist and ID movements want none of this; they want to replace science's methods with something that's explicitly theistic and teleological. Maybe this is where the confusion lies; are you conflating early theistic scientists with the modern ID/creationism movements?

You're confusing trust with convenience. Just as people tend to pick and choose the parts of their religion to believe in that they find convenient and ignore those they find inconvenient, they will choose to listen to untrusted politicians over trusted scientists, because it's more convenient.

For example, it doesn't clash with their religious beliefs or it allows them to continue with their current lifestyle rather than make changes or cutbacks.

I find that I really only understand the things that I've challenged. If I trust a scientist and say "well, he must know what he's talking about" then I don't really get his ideas under my skin as well as if I first say "it's bullshit!", ask for proof, ask intelligent questions, and get a little epiphany where I suddenly start making profound conclusions based on what I've just learned.

I think that generally accepting something as true is pretty worthless. I only respect the teachers who I have challenged and who have earned my respect. My parents should have named me Paul...

Rather than teach kids to believe scientists, you should teach kids to ask questions, and keep asking them. All the way up the ladder. If the science is good, and the questions asked of dogma are tough, we'll all be better off.

...I often ask people the most basic scientific question: "If you drop 2 differently-weighted rocks from shoulder height, which one hits the ground first?"

Most grade 12 students in my part of the world (Canada, supposedly a "developed" nation - must be hormones not intellect they're talking about) answer incorrectly and with certainty: "The heavier one," (they actually say "heaviest," but I just forgive that tiny little error).

Yet at 54yo, having a very good education up to pre-U, I only figured out WHY this is so just a few years ago (it has to do with momentum 'balancing' the force of gravity). So no wonder many people get it wrong - and a lot of other stuff. I thought that everyone understood this gravity thing because I thought EVERYONE learned in school about Galileo's experiment with the two heavy objects he dropped from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Guess not. And that's a crime against children - they SHOULD be taught this!!! It makes a FANTASTIC intro to science: a simple concept that can be proved without even leaving your seat, and proves also that common sense can be wrong, or WRONG, and sometimes even [u][i][b]W-R-O-N-G[/b][/i][/u]. Which is important because nothing generates [i]interest[/i] like a big surprise does.